A Career In Review
When he was a young man, Don Lindsay had a tough decision to make. His future looked bright, but he just wasn’t sure what direction he wanted it to take. “Back as I was graduating from high school, I was torn between becoming a doctor — because my father is a doctor and I come from a long line of doctors — or becoming an engineer and ultimately going into business,” he said in an interview. Lindsay chose the latter — a decision that would continue to pay dividends for years to come.
Lindsay indicated once he entered the world of engineering and chose a specialty, he knew there was no turning back.
“Mining engineering guaranteed you a summer job,” he reminisced. “The summer job was in the far north, which was remote, deep in the woods in wilderness and nature. I stumbled into it that way. I had a great summer job working in a deep underground uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan [Canada], made enough money to pay for the next three years of school, and the rest, as they say, is history. That’s how I found myself in mining engineering.”
Don Lindsay’s Degrees of Success
Don Lindsay is not only a graduate of the esteemed Queen’s University in Canada, but also Harvard Business School. In addition, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and an honorary Doctorate of Technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
His journey to the C-suite, however, wasn’t as cut-and-dried as it may appear from the outside. “I came out of Harvard Business School and I went to a firm called Wood Gundy,” he recalled. It was Canada’s premier investment bank at the time, and Lindsay joined as an entry-level associate. “I thought I’d be staying there for two or three years until I found my passion,” he said. The reality was that he became president of that organization 15 years later.
“I became president of what was by that time called CIBC World Markets because the big bank, CIBC, took over Wood Gundy,” Lindsay said. “There was a whole range of consolidation in the financial services industry back in the late ’80s. That combined corporate banking with investment banking, and I became president of what was then Canada’s largest investment bank.
“But one of my keys to success within Wood Gundy and CIBC was I formed a specialty industry group, a group that only focused on the mining industry. We would go around the world to Australia, to South Africa, visit companies that are London-based, New York, of course, over to Asia. That was before the internet was actually really dominant.”
Lindsay also served as president and CEO of Teck Resources Limited. He was appointed president in January 2005 before becoming the CEO just a few months later, in April. Prior to that, he was the president of CIBC World Markets, leading that organization’s investment and corporate banking division.
Awards and Accolades
Don Lindsay is also on the board of directors at Alpine Canada. He’s also the chairman of the Invictus Games, coming to Vancouver-Whistler in 2025.
Lindsay has held a number of other high-profile roles throughout his career. He was the chair of the Business Council of Canada for three years, and the chair of the International Council on Mining and Metals. He completed a stint as the chair of the Board of Governors for Mining and Metals at the renowned World Economic Forum as well.
One of the most notable awards Lindsay has received over the years is the Nature Trust of British Columbia Conservation Champion Award in 2014. That same year, he received the British Columbia Community Achievement Award and the CIM Distinguished Service Medal. Going as far back as 2009, he received the Mining Association of British Columbia’s Mining Person of the Year recognition. He was also the recipient of an Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser Award in 2017, an award for the work he did with the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Foundation. He was named to the Order of British Columbia in 2014.
Recently, Manulife Financial Corporation welcomed Lindsay as its new chairman. At its core, Manulife Financial Corporation is a business dedicated to helping people find better, smarter, and easier solutions when it comes to their wealth. Based in Toronto, it offers both financial advice, wealth management, and insurance not only in Canada, but also in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
At the end of 2021, Manulife employed more than 38,000 people worldwide. That included more than 119,000 agents and thousands of distribution partners. All told, it offered an innovative blend of services to more than 33 million people — a trend that shows absolutely no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Don Lindsay comes to Manulife at a critical juncture in that organization’s history. As of 2021, it had over $1.4 trillion worth of assets under management and administration. It paid out over $32 billion in benefits and claims to customers over a 12-month period. Its commitment to its primary mission is as strong as it has ever been: It wants to change the entire industry for the better and for all time.
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